profile

profile

1. a view or representation of an object, esp a building, in contour or outline

2. a vertical section of soil from the ground surface to the parent rock showing the different horizons

3. 

a. a vertical section of part of the earth's crust showing the layers of rock

b. a representation of such a section

4. the outline of the shape of a river valley either from source to mouth (long profile) or at right angles to the flow of the river (cross profile)

---

profile [′prō‚fīl]

(geology)

The outline formed by the intersection of the plane of a vertical section and the ground surface. Also known as topographic profile.

Data recorded by a single line of receivers from one shot point in seismic prospecting.

(geophysics)

A graphic representation of the variation of one property, such as gravity, usually as ordinate, with respect to another property, usually linear, such as distance.

(hydrology)

A vertical section of a potentiometric surface, such as a water table.

(petrology)

In structural petrology, a cross section of a homoaxial structure.

---

1.		PROFILE - Simple language for matching and scoring data. "User's Manual for the PROFILE System", Cambridge Computer Assoc (May 1974).
2.		profile - A control file for a program, especially a text file automatically read from each user's home directory and intended to be easily modified by the user in order to customise the program's behaviour. Used to avoid hard-coded choices (see also dot file, rc file).
3.		profile - A report on the amounts of time spent in each routine of a program, used to find and tune away the hot spots in it. This sense is often verbed. Some profiling modes report units other than time (such as call counts) and/or report at granularities other than per-routine, but the idea is similar.